


lightning then the thunder

by reptilianraven



Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Friendship, Gen, Humor, so basically cyberpunk fantasy is what im saying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26478130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reptilianraven/pseuds/reptilianraven
Summary: “Doc, I’m,” Vang0 words come out haltingly. “I can’t have shift sickness. I don’t know what a CSBS is. None of these things apply to me. I’m human.”“Human?” Hollowfire tilts her head, golden eyes glinting with confusion. “Vang0, you’re a dragon.”“I’m awhat?”-Or the one where Dasha is a vampire, Burger is a werewolf, and Vang0, as far as he knew, was a regular ol’ human.Fuckin’ amnesia.Made him forget the fact that he’s a goddamnweredragon.
Relationships: Dapper Dasha & Vang0 Bang0 & Burger Chainz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> people who know me from previous fandoms know that i have a er....penchant for turning my favorite character into a dragon. well guess what, ive struck again. vang0 drag0!!!

Here’s the rundown: Vang0 is human.

How could he not be?

He lives in Night City, where the population is 70% mythics. It’s pretty damn easy to remember he’s human when on the subway there’s a harpy trying to fold her wings—one natural and the other reinforced with steel feathers—smaller so that she doesn’t bump into anybody against the morning commute rush, when Vang0 sees a man with glowing eyes talking into his agent and stopping to gently shush the vaguely translucent dog he’s walking, when Vang0 passes by a bunch of kids on the street playing hopscotch with runes, casting little spells with mechanical glyph staffs. Everybody these days has metal in their bodies, and a big chunk of that population also has magic running through their veins.

Vang0 just happens to be one of the people who’s only got the former. 

It doesn’t bother him that he’s human. He has a whole lot of other things to be insecure about (boy, does he fuckin’ have a lot of other things), so he’s idly grateful that his species isn’t one of those things, thank fuck. Afterall, being friends with Dasha and Burger, both mythics, has taught Vang0 that being a mythic, just like being a human, comes with its inconveniences.

Dasha is a vampire and she’s decked out with all the necessary cybernetics needed to be able to go out in the daytime and not catch on fire. She’s got an anti UV dermal forcefield system that protects her entire body and a holographic visor to protect her eyes (and also make her look incredibly badass). Unfortunately, she says, no amount of cybernetics can abate her thirst for blood, so every week she has to pick up her prescription of O negative at the pharmacy (“Why O neg?” Vang0 asked once. Dasha just shrugged, “It’s the tastiest.”) and pay the evilly inflated price of the substance she needs to literally survive. Fuckin’ US of A.

Burger is a werewolf, and while he doesn’t need any specific cybernetics for it (his current cybernetics, his eye and his jaw, are the special shifting kind that shift along with his transformation, it’s rad as hell), he does have trouble finding places to spend the full moon. It’s difficult, Burger told him before, to get a place. On the outskirts of Night City, there are werewolf shift parks where fully shifted wolves can run free within the facility, but the check in price is _yikes_. Burger can really only afford to check in there maybe three times a year, so in the months he can’t check in, he usually calls up Vang0 and Dasha and they cuddle with him in the back of his van, petting his fur, trying to soothe his whines. 

Being a mythic just seems like being human but with so much more shit to worry about, so Vang0 is pretty at peace with his 100% human status. He’s human. He knows it.

He’s human and it just so happens that since the beginning of this year, he’s been getting cold way, wayyyy easier.

He’s human and these past few months, he’s suddenly acquired the urge to hoard useless trinkets and let them pile up in his shitty apartment.

He’s human and two weeks ago, he started having vivid dreams of electricity, of sharp green light zipping out and dancing around his fingers.

He’s human and two days ago, he went out to the roof of his apartment building in the middle of a storm, getting soaked to the bone, trembling from the cold, all just to see the immaculate crackle of lightning.

He’s human but something is...off.

And he doesn’t know what the fuck it is.

-

Dasha, unsurprisingly, has a simple but totally not cool solution.

“We’re taking you to a mythic doctor.” She says, hands on her hips.

“I’m human, I don’t need to see a mythic doctor.” Vang0 says from where he’s reclined on Dasha’s couch, playing with her taser. Clicking it on and off, watch the electricity zap zap zap. 

“Vang0, buddy,” Burger says from the other end of the couch, nervously looking at the taser Vang0 is holding. “You need to see a mythic doctor. You could be hexed!”

“Hexes can do this?” Vang0 looks up from the taser, genuinely curious. He darts his gaze between Burger and Dasha. “Make me want to turn my apartment into a shithole and also turn me into a budding arsonist obsessed with electricity?”

“Ehhhhhh,” Dasha doesn’t look so confident anymore but she pushes forward. “Weirdly specific hex, but it’s not out of the question. This mythic doctor owes me a favor, so you don’t have to worry about the cost or anything. Get up, let’s go.”

“Do I have to?” Vang0 sighs, switching on that taser again, enraptured by how the electricity dances. “This whole thing doesn’t seem harmful.”

“It doesn’t, does it?” Dasha deadpans, slamming her fist on the wall _loud_.

Vang0 acts on instinct, an instinct he didn’t know he had but is buried deep in his mind, bursting out. Vang0 stands from the couch, and he bares his teeth and _growls_ , the sound coming from him inhuman and angry, his mind going a mile a minute thinking _where is the danger, where is the threat, protect protect **protect**_

“Woah, woah, woah!” Burger’s hands are stroking Vang0 soothingly. Dasha looks surprised at how violently Vang0 reacted. Vang0 blinks dazedly, snapping out of it and falling back onto the couch. “Deep breaths, Vang0. Happy thoughts.”

“What—” Vang0 says, trying to calm down. There's a part of his mind that he doesn’t know, and it wants so badly to surface, but it can’t seem to break through. He can feel it, though. It’s powerful. It’s animal. It’s...him, somehow. “—the fuck was that.”

“That,” Dasha says, eyebrows high up there. “Is why we’re taking you to a mythic doctor.”

“But—”

“Say no and I’ll tase you,” Dasha squints.

Vang0 is silent for a moment, thinking about lightning and electric crackles and light dancing around his body. He says, “Is it weird that my brain kind of sort of wants that to happen?”

“Yep, okay,” Burger pats Vang0 on the shoulder. “It’s definitely mythic doctor time.”

-

Burger drives them to the clinic. It’s on the other end of Night City, a small place with a little flickering neon sign that says “Hollowfire Mythic Medical Clinic” above the door. They all walk in—all three of them, together, because they’re a codependent bunch—and the fae receptionist takes one look at the gaggle of weirdos in the receiving office and absentmindedly yells to the office area of the clinic “GABBY, YOUR 1PM IS HERE.”

A woman with long black hair and bright golden eyes pops her head out of the office doorway, “Dasha, is that you?”

“The one and only, Gabby,” Dasha smiles in that cool badass way she loves to do.

“So nice to see you again, Dasha!” The woman grins, walking out to Dasha to give her a quick hug. “Again, I can’t thank you enough for putting my ex behind bars.”

Vang0’s eyebrows go up as Dasha cooly says, “You can thank me by helping him,” and then Dasha grabs Vang0 by the shoulders and maneuvers him in front of the woman, presenting Vang0 to her as if he’s a wet cat. 

“Hello there, I’m Doctor Hollowfire,” The woman grins, and up close, Vang0 can see her how the gold in her eyes shift and click like a kaleidoscope. “Name, dearie?”

“Vang0 Bang0,” he says, throwing up his hand signs.

“How unfortunate,” Hollowfire nods solemnly. She gestures for them to enter her office, and they all file in. It’s small and simple, a desk, a few chairs, and an examination table with some sheets on it. Burger decides to sit in the tiniest seat available as Hollowfire pats the examination table, “Sit here, Vang0, and I’ll do some diagnostic runes. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions while I drew and cast them?”

“Not at all,” Vang0 says, and she begins.

It takes around 10 minutes, the whole process. Hollowfire draws glowing runes in the air and presses her palm against the patterned shapes. The rune lights up, and she moves the symbol with her hand, scanning Vang0’s body with the ghostly light the rune emits before writing her findings onto her holopad. All the while she does this, she asks Vang0 about his physical symptoms, his behavior, his urges. _Have you begun experiencing temperature sensitivity? Have you acquired hoarding tendencies? Have you begun feeling an affinity for a certain element of nature, and if so, which one?_ Each one, Vang0 answers. _Yeah, I’ve been getting cold real fast, lately. Yes, my apartment is the “bitch, you live like this?” meme. Yep, lightning has begun calling to me. Or maybe I’ve begun calling it.”_

“Right, well,” Hollowfire claps, all the runes in the air disappearing into a thin mist that dissipates around the room, making the clinic look like a medicinal vape club. “This is a very normal condition you have, Vang0.”

“Is it a hex?” Dasha asks.

“Is it a curse?” Burger asks.

“Am I just a weirdo?” Vang0 asks.

“None of that, though that last one isn’t out of the question,” Holllowfire laughs, patting Vang0’s back. “You just have shift sickness, that’s all.”

A beat of silence.

“What?” Vang0, Dasha, and Burger all say at the same time. Vaguely, Vang0 thinks, “nice coordination team”.

Hollowfire looks puzzled. “Shift sickness is common, don’t worry. It happens to all were-creatures who haven’t shifted in a while. The simplest explanation is that when you don’t shift for too long, the mythic part of your brain starts to go a little haywire, kind of like when you haven’t taken your dog out for a walk in a few days. Your mythic brain just has the zoomies right now, and you have to let it out.”

“I have to…” Vang0 says distantly. “...Let it out?”

“The CSBS you have installed probably fritzed and forgot to notify you that you’ve gone too long without a shift, is my guess,” Hollowfire hums.

“My,” Vang0 is so, so lost. “My what?”

“Your cybernetic shift blocker system,” Hollowfire says slowly. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, to have one. It’s a common piece of technology used by many were-creatures that have trouble controlling their shifts.”

“Uh,” Dasha says.

“Hm,” Burger says.

“Er,” Vang0 says.

“Okay,” Hollowfire says. “I must be missing something, because all three of you have been looking at me like I’ve blown your minds and not like I’m telling you that your friend here has an incredibly easy to cure condition. Care to share with the class?”

“Doc, I’m,” Vang0 words come out haltingly. “I can’t have shift sickness. I don’t know what a CSBS is. None of these things apply to me. I’m human.”

“Human?” Hollowfire tilts her head, golden eyes glinting with confusion. “Vang0, you’re a dragon.”

“I’m a _what?_ ”

-

“‘Weredragon’ ( _Mythosapien draconis_ ) is the umbrella term for all species of mythic reptilian shifters coming from dragon mythos and magic. Weredragons of different variations can be found all over the Earth, but overall they only comprise 3% of the world’s total humanoid population, being one of the rarer species of mythics.” Burger reads from one of the brochures Hollowfire gave them—the one titled Your Weredragon Child!—and he looks up at where he’s seated at the other end of the van, grinning. “D’you hear that, Vang0? You’re rare!”

“Burger,” Vang0 presses his hands into his eyes as he sinks deeper into Burger’s pillows, willing the mattress at the back of the Burger’s van to eat him alive. “I can’t process anything you’re saying because I’m still trying to process the fact that my stupid fuckshit amnesia robbed me of the knowledge of my own frickin’ species.”

“Oh,” Burger blinks. “Do you want me to stop reading to you?”

Vang0 sighs. “Nah, you might as well keep going.”

“Nice!” Burger smiles. “So it says here that all weredragons are elemental mythics, and thus all of them have an affinity for a certain aspect of nature—”

Vang0 tunes him out, Burger’s words feeling floaty and unreal as he lays on Burger’s mattress. After Hollowfire told Vang0 his true species, there was some conversational chaos that ended with Hollowfire giving them a bunch of brochures about weredragons and one user manual for a CSBS program. Burger is reading through the weredragon ones while Dasha, in the passenger seat, reads the user manual quietly.

Dragon, Vang0 thinks. Vang0 is a weredragon. Inside of him, there’s magic, and this magic needs to come out, but it can’t, and if Vang0 doesn’t shift soon—

 _”Disable your CSBS and shift as soon as possible,”_ Were Hollowfire’s final words to Vang0. _”Prolonged shift sickness can, well, in simplest terms, cause you to go feral.”_

That...did not sound very nice.

“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” Dasha says, crawling from the passenger seat to the back of the van where Vang0 and Burger are. 

She unceremoniously pokes at the button on Vang0’s left temple, opening up Vang0’s personal holoscreen, maximizing it so everybody can see his desktop—his background image a picture of himself with a cat ear filter.

“You figured out how the CSBS works?” Vang0 says, watching Dasha as she opens up Vang0’s control panel.

“Yeah, it’s pretty simple,” Dasha goes to Vang0’s installed programs, scrolling past the several optic Instagram filters he has. In a few seconds, she gets to the letter S and finds a program Vang0 never knew he had; Shift Block Pro. She clicks on it, and the program begins booting up. “All you have to do is login to your account and on Shift Block Pro’s dashboard, you can disable the system and you’ll be free to shift.”

“That seems easy enough,” Burger pipes in.

“Yeah,” Vang0 blinks. “I expected this to be harder.”

The login screen pops up.

 _PASSWORD: ___________ , the screen shows.

Vang0 feels a headache come on as he stares at his holoscreen.

“Well? Log in.” Dasha says.

“Yeah, Vang0, what’s the problem?” Burger says. 

“Guys,” Vang0 says, pained. “ _I have amnesia._ ”

Vang0 can practically feel their brains buffering.

“Oh,” Dasha says.

“Right,” Burger says.

Vang0 thunks his head against the wall of the van “Fuck my liiiiiiiiife.”

“No, look!” Burger points at the holoscreen. “There’s a ‘forgot password?’ button! Click it.”

Dasha clicks it and a security question pops up. 

_WHO WAS YOUR FIRST GRADE TEACHER?_

“How the fuck would I know that!?” Vang0 hisses, clicking on the ‘another question?’ button.

_WHAT WAS THE NAME OF YOUR FIRST PET?_

“I’m beginning to see the problem here,” Burger says musingly as Vang0 clicks the button again. 

_WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE STREET OF YOUR CHILDHOOD HOME?_

“Okay,” Dasha winces as Vang0 begins thunking his head against the wall of the van again. “We’re going to need a new plan.”

-

It takes Dasha like five minutes to make a new plan. Apparently, Dasha knows a techie who owes her a favor, because it seems like every other person in Night City owes her one way or another.

“Their name is Sprinkles,” Dasha says in the passenger seat..

“Your techie’s name is...Sprinkles,” Vang0 says in disbelief, leaning over to look at her. “Where the fuck did you find them, in a McDonald’s Happy Meal?”

“I, for one, am a big fan of food themed names,” Burger says as he makes a turn into the part of Night City that’s definitely more illegal than the other parts of Night City. 

“Okay, fair,” Vang0 shrugs, turning back to Dasha. “And you’re sure they’ll be able to hard reset my CSBS?” Vang0 had skimmed through Shift Block Pro’s user manual and the program is pretty fuckin’ airtight against any external tampering.

“If anybody can do it, it’s them,” Dasha says cooly. “They were the one who installed my dermal forcefield and buffed it up so that it was bulletproof too.”

“Wait, _that’s_ why you’re bulletproof?” Burger gasps. “I thought that was just how all vampires were!”

“No, Burger. No.”

“Cool,” Vang0 says. “So this whole shift blocking issue will be fixed soon enough, I’ll turn into a dragon, and shift sickness will go bye bye.”

“Yep!” Burger chirps. “Nothing else can possibly go wrong.”

They should have a rule, on this team, that nobody is allowed to ever say things like that, because as if on cue, a deep, sharp pain stabs Vang0 in the chest.

Vang0 gasps in pain and Dasha’s eyes widen.

“Vang0?” Dasha looks at him in concern. 

“I’m fine,” Vang0 lies, as he always does when he’s in pain. “Everything is chill, everything’s—AAAAAAGGGHHHH”

“ _Burger, pull over._ ” Vang0 vaguely hears Dasha say, but after that, he can’t hear anything else but the deep growling in his mind. All he can hear is something low and magical and contained and it wants to come out, crackling pain zipping across his body as he writhes on the floor of the van.

“Vang0, buddy,” Burger says. He’s at Vang0’s side, hands unsure if he should touch Vang0 or not. “Take deep breaths, try to breathe.”

“What’s going on, Vang0?” Dasha is here now too, voice tinged with worry. “Talk to us.”

“H-hurts,” Vang0 gasps out. It feels like there’s a fuse box in his ribcage, sparking and smoking. “It wants to come out, it—”

“You mentioned lightning back at Hollowfire’s,” Dasha says, eyes widening. 

Vang0 clutches at his chest, feeling the angry electricity thrum inside of him, feeling it spark outwards. “I feel like a lightning storm, yeah, and it wants to come out, it wants—”

“Please don’t zap us to smithereens!” Burger says, panicked, looking at Vang0 who is literally beginning to spark with green sparks of electricity now.

“I—” He shuts his eyes and the green sparks follow him in the darkness too. “I can’t!—”

“Yes you can,” Dasha grabs Vang0 by the shoulders, speaking firm and strong. “This is not a monster under the bed, this is _you_. You can control this, Vang0. I believe in you. _We_ believe in you.

“I—” Vang0 still has his eyes closed, and he doesn’t will away the green electricity so much as incorporate thoughts of Dasha and Burger into his mind. He thinks about his friends, how much he cares about them, how much he _doesn’t_ want to electrocute them. He thinks about the green sparks dodging and zipping past Dasha and Burger into the safety of the black.

The pain bleeds out of his body and Vang0 slumps against the wall of the van, breathing heavily.

“Vang0?” Dasha says.

“I’m good,” Vang0 says in between his huffs of air. “It’s all good now.”

“You’re still looking a little bit. Er.” Burger says haltingly. “Sparky.”

Vang0 opens his eyes and sees Burger and Dasha looking at his hands, so he raises them up and, dancing between his fingertips are little green bolts of electricity, hopping from finger to finger.

“Uhhhhh!” Vang0 says, panic rising again.

“Don’t panic! I have an idea!” Burger says valiantly.

From his pocket, Burger fishes out, of all things, his agent. The screen is black, the thing dead as usual from being at 0 battery, and Vang0 is about to ask Burger what he’s thinking when Burger boops his agent against Vang0’s hands.

“Boop,” Burger actually says.

The bolts of electricity jump from Vang0’s hands to the agent, the screen coming to life and the battery immediately filling up to full.

“Huh,” Dasha says.

“Sweet!” Burger says.

“You did _not_ just use me as a charger,” Vang0 says.

“I so did,” Burger grins, raising his hand. “Up top, Pikachu!”

Vang0 can never resist. He high fives Burger.

-

Burger follows Dasha’s directions and in a few minutes, they’re parked in front of, of all places, an abandoned 7/11.

“Got the decrepit munchies, Dasha?” Vang0 asks.

Dasha rolls her eyes. “We’re in the right place, asshole. When we’re inside, make sure to just shut up and follow my lead, okay? Sprinkles is...eccentric.”

With that, Dasha gets out of the van. Vang0 looks toward Burger who just shrugs, and they both get out to follow her.

Dasha walks up to the entrance of the 7/11. The door is completely gone and Vang0 can see inside clearly. It looks like shit, inside; dusty and old, dark with empty shelves casting shadows, a ghost of what once was a convenience store. Vang0 is about to ask what the hell is up when Dasha places her hand flat in the air and pushes forward against the open doorway.

Her hand makes contact with _something_ ; the clear air inside the doorway suddenly rippling and revealing a translucent sheen. A forcefield. Dasha draws a pattern on the surface of the forcefield. The path of the pattern she draws lights up in a pink light, showing a rune. The rune seeps into the translucent forcefield with an inexplicably pleased hum. 

“Come on,” Dasha says before walking through the threshold, seemingly disappearing past it.

“Magic is so cool,” Burger grins, walking through the door.

“Magic is gonna give me an ulcer,” Vang0 grumbles, walking through the forcefield.

Gone are the abandoned guts of a 7/11. The room is completely different, the 7/11 being an illusion to hide this; a messy but undeniably techie workshop. There are bright lights installed in the ceiling, illuminating the chaos of the room; tools of all shapes and sizes hanging on the wall, wires upon wires snaking across the floor, holoscreens covering whatever parts of the walls aren’t already occupied. If the whole room wasn’t already screaming “illegal techie”, the grinning kid with an undercut sitting on one of the steel tables, swinging their feet and staring at all three of them with a piercing gaze would definitely tell Vang0 that they’re in the right place.

“Dapper Dasha and co.,” The kid grins manically before throwing their arms up. “Welcome to my EVIL LABORATORY.”

Okay, Vang0 thinks. He’s gotta amend his previous thought to “illegal techie who is also probably batshit.”

“Sprinkles,” Dasha says coolly. “You got my text, yeah? You can fix Vang0?”

The kid, Sprinkles, pouts. “Dash, come on, would it kill you to play along with my vibes?”

“I like your vibes,” says Burger.

“Thanks!” Sprinkles looks to Burger. “I like your eye! Do you want me to make it shoot lasers?”

“You can do that!?”

“Lasers later,” Dasha says, grabbing Vang0 by the shoulders again and pushing him towards Sprinkles. “Fix Vang0 now.”

“Yeah, uh,” Vang0 looks at Sprinkles, with the unique impression that he’s definitely talking to somebody weirder than he is. “Not that I don’t dig the whole ‘off the shits’ shtick you’ve got going on, but I almost electrocuted my friends a while ago because of shift sickness so. I’d like to not do that. Which means getting my program rebooted.”

“Okay, fine, fine, I get it, dire situation,” Sprinkles sighs, hopping off the table and—jesus, they’re short, this kid is five feet of crazy—pats the table. “Sit here and let me pick at the shit in your brain.”

Vang0 sits on the table while Dasha and Burger stand close by. Sprinkles scurries around the workshop and comes back with some kind of box looking contraption and a USB cord. Unceremoniously, they open up the panel at the side of Vang0’s neck without so much as an ‘excuse me’.

“Woah, hey,” Vang0 growls a little at the touch. “A little warning would be nice.”

“Sorry,” Sprinkles says, not sounding very sorry at all as they look through the different plug ports Vang0 has. “I forget to say things when I’m getting in the zone.” And then they jab the USB plug into Vang0’s port with like, 0 care at all. 

“So, uh,” Burger says from the side, watching Sprinkles heft the box contraption onto the table, toggling with the buttons on the thing. “How does this process work?”

“Pretty easy, Mister Cool Eye,” Sprinkles plugs the other end of the USB wire into the box. The box hums to life, projecting a small holoscreen. On that holoscreen is an energy meter, very, very slowly ticking from 0 to 100. “Shift Block Pro’s coding is foolproof. There isn’t a netrunner on this planet who could get through that program. It’s impenetrable, so you gotta find a loophole.”

“And what is the loophole?” Dasha asks.

“Death!” Sprinkles grins.

A beat of silence.

“Are you going to _kill me_!?” Vang0 snarls at Sprinkles. “That fixes one problem and causes like a bunch others! Like being dead!”

“Woah, woah, woah, cool it, dragon man,” Sprinkles laughs, putting their hands up placatingly. “I won’t kill you, I’m just going to convince all your programs that you’re dead. Doing that makes all programs shut down back to factory settings, cleaning all data and accounts. No need to remember any pesky passwords or anything, everything’s a new start!”

“Sprinkles,” Dasha says, pained but also like she’s used to this kind of flavor of crazy. “I need you to be very clear and specific with me. Can you do that?”

Sprinkles shrugs, watching the energy meter on the box tick closer to 100. “I guess so. Why?”

“How exactly are you going to convince Vang0’s programs that he’s dead?”

Sprinkles tilts their head at Dasha, as if that’s a stupid question. “By—”

Before they can finish their sentence, there is a loud banging at the forcefield.

“SPRINKLES SANDEJAS!” Shouts a deep voice from the other end of the forcefield. “SANDEJAS, YOU PIECE OF SHIT, COME OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!”

“Uhhhhh,” Burger looks at the holoscreen on the wall showing Sprinkles’ CCTV. There, on the screen, everybody can see a bunch of burly looking men armed with a bunch of guns and mechanical glyph staffs. “Do you have any other customers today?”

“Riggghhht, so,” Sprinkles winces as a man bangs on the forcefield again. “Those aren’t customers, those are some gang peeps I may have pissed off and am currently on the run from.”

“ _Sprinkles_ ,” Dasha heaves a heavy sigh. 

“What! You asked me to fix your friend, you didn’t ask about my situation, Dash!”

“Fix Vang0 now then,” Dasha says sternly. “So that we can all get out of here.”

“He’s already on the way, sheesh. Chill out a bit, will you? ” Sprinkles rolls their eyes. They pat the box contraption. “This generator is charging right up and once it hits max, Vang0 here will get charged up with a couple bajillion volts of electricity that’ll make his programs think he bit the dust, then presto! Everything is hard rebooted.”

“You’re charging me with what!?” Vang0 yelps, looking at the generator in panic.

Sprinkles yells louder. “I _SAID_ ‘WITH A COUPLE BAJILLION VOLTS OF ELECTRI—”

“I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME,” Vang0 yells back. “I’m just! What! You’re rebooting my programs by frying me to a crisp!?”

“Dasha mentioned that you’re a lightning dragon, so like, relax,” Sprinkles smiles and pats Vang0’s knee. “It’ll feel like a few hundred energy drinks. You’ll love it, promise.”

And Vang0 thinks about that. He reaches into his mind, tries to find the trapped beast, and he doesn’t find any fear. In fact, Vang0 feels _hunger_.

Hunger for the spark.

“Sprinkles, not to be rude but,” Burger says. Next to him Dasha is just pinching the bridge of her nose silently. “What the fuck?”

“I get that a lot,” Sprinkles nods. “Anyway, keep everything plugged in and the box will deliver the volts in around three minutes?”

“We don’t have three minutes!” Dasha hisses. She throws a hand to the doorway, being shot at now with an SMG. “Those guys are going to get past the forcefield any second now!” 

“Shit, you’re right,” Sprinkles hums. “Looks like I gotta go then.”

Dasha starts marching towards Sprinkles. “Oh no you fucking don’t, you brat—”

“Bye guys!” Sprinkles opens their palm. On it, a rune tattooed into their skin. They crouch, pressing their hand to the ground. “See ya whenever!”

Around Sprinkles, a bright circle of pink light and then—

They’re gone.

“Dasha,” Vang0 says. “Your techie is a nutcase.”

“I knew that, but we have bigger problems right now.” Dasha looks at the forcefield. Through the translucent barrier, all of them can see the blur of the men now blasting the forcefield with magical energy pouring from their mechanical staffs. The forcefield begins to crack like glass, and Dasha turns her head back to where Vang0 sits at the table. “Alright, we’re unplugging you and getting out of here, I think there’s a back door, and we can run for it once we’re out—”

“Don’t,” Vang0 says when he sees Dasha and Burger go for the plugs.

“Vang0,” Burger says.

“What?” Dasha says.

“I think—” He thinks about the beast in his mind. The beast that wants this. The beast that is him. “I think this will work.”

Dasha says, “I am not going to let you get shocked by god knows what—”

Burger says, “Yeah, Vang0, this seems pretty dangerous and—”

Vang0 cuts them off with a “Trust me.”

Burger and Dasha look at Vang0. They really look at him. He doesn’t know what they see in his gaze, if they can see the beast inside him like how he can feel it, but they both nod.

“Okay,” Dasha squeezes Vang0’s hand.

“We trust you,” Burger pats Vang0’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” Vang0 smiles.

The forcefield cracks further, and inside of him, he hears a growling.

“You guys uh.” Vang0 says. “You might want to stand back.”

Dasha and Burger look at each other in worry, but they dutifully step away.

Vang0 watches the forcefield crack more, he watches the generator’s energy meter tick higher and higher, he hears inside his mind a growling, a snarling, a voice that looks at Dasha and Burger in the room and says _**protect.**_

The generator’s energy meter hits maximum then—

Lightning.

Pure lightning, coursing through his veins, his mind, his heart. He feels a click in his brain, a lock coming unlocked, and that lightning comes bursting through the dam, no longer giving him pain, just filling him with _light_. It’s hard to make out the specifics, in this thunderstorm of euphoria and relief. But through the green electricity blinding his eyes, he knows he’s shifting. He can feel the magic inside of him pull him under, finally, finally, finally and—

Vang0 is on the floor.

Vang0’s claws scratch against the ground.

Vang0’s body crackles violently, surrounded in green sparks.

The forcefield breaks open.

And Vang0 _roars_ , sending all the energy in him forward.

Then, 

nothing.

-

Vang0 wakes up warm. This is new. For the past year, he’s always been waking up with a shiver in his bones. Right now though, he can’t really concentrate on the beautiful warmth because he groans, his whole body feeling _exhausted_.

“I feel like shiiiiiit,” Vang0 says, his eyes still shut.

There’s a rustle beside him, then Dasha’s voice. “That’s probably because you lightning bolted like 7 guys out cold.”

Another rustle, on his other side. Burger’s voice now saying, “It was _awesome_ , Vang0. Also? You are _so adorable right now_.”

“I’m what?” Vang0 cracks an eye open to try and figure out what the hell Burger is talking about when he looks down at his body and.

Huh.

Okay, so Vang0 is definitely not in his human form anymore.

His body is serpentine, but not like a snake. More like a Komodo Dragon. Dark green scales cover his body and his reptilian limbs end in sharp, black claws. He wiggles and, yep, that’s definitely a pair of wings behind him, attached to him. He stretches one out and looks at the leathery green expanse of it and, vaguely, he feels his tail. His tail which he has now. His tail that is swishing back and forth in excitement.

“Okay, not gonna lie, this is pretty cool,” Vang0 says before looking around and seeing that he’s on the mattress in Burger’s van. Dasha and Burger sit on either side of him and _wait a minute_. “Did I—Did I get fucking _smaller?_ ”

“Yeah,” Dasha smirks down at him. “You sure did, bud.”

“You’re like, Labrador sized,” Burger squees. “I wanna cuddle you for hours!”

“You have gotta be kidding me!” Vang0 says, before, embarrassingly, he yawns.

“AWWWWWWWWW,” Burger all but screeches. 

“Is baby dwagon sweepy?” Dasha cross.

“Shut upppp,” Vang0 throws a wing over his face. “You guys suck.”

“We’re just kidding with you, dude,” Dasha lightly punches his shoulder. Or, well, the dragon equivalent of his shoulder. She lies down next to Vang0. “You look cool as hell.”

“You do!” Burger lies down on his other side. “And you were so badass when you used your lightning roar attack, man.”

Vang0 peeks past his wing and sighs. With Dasha and Burger at his side, their warmth seeps into his scales. Warmth, he figures, is worth the teasing.

“Fine, I forgive you guys.” Vang0 huffs. “But I’m tired as fuck right now and also really cold. So. You know.”

“You’re cold?” Burger smiles, scooching closer to Vang0. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Why, I don’t know, Burg,” Dasha faux muses. “Vang0 is being awfully vague with what he wants.”

Vang0 growls, no real bite behind it, and says, “Come on, don’t make me say it.”

“Okay, okay,” Dasha laughs, pressing her wonderful warm body against’s Vang0’s cold one.

“Cuddle time it is,” Burger says, nuzzling his face under Vang0’s chin.

And it’s—

It’s really nice.

As Vang0 drifts off to sleep, pulled under an exhaustion deep in his bones, he revels in the warmth of his friends. He revels in the feeling of lightning in his heart. He revels in the feeling of the beast in his mind—the beast that is him—finally free to stretch his limbs. 

That beast takes in the two people around Vang0. His two best friends in the whole wide world. Two treasures he wants to keep safe more than anything else. 

That beast hums in contentment.

That beast lets him sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if u wish to see more of this universe, particularly more of burger and dasha’s experience as mythics, worry not! i have more fics planned in this verse hehe :3c. but until then, itd be awesome if you left a comment!!!!
> 
> other things  
> -the second chapter is just lore for the universe that couldnt make it into the story JKHKSJKFHJSD)  
> -Sprinkles Sandejas is an OC i made for if ever i get to play a campaign of cyberpunk red. [you can see their reference sheet here](https://actualbird.tumblr.com/post/625783274674995200/full-ref-of-my-cyberpunk-red-oc-sprinkles)
> 
> im [actualbird](https://actualbird.tumblr.com) on tumblr!


	2. LOOOOOORE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there are some footnotes in this lore bc im extra. just scroll down to the bottom to see em

** KNOWN MYTHICS **

**Mythosapien vampiris - Vampire**

Vampire is the most well known term for the subset of mythics that require the regular ingestion of blood (species of blood origin varies depending on the specific vampire variation) to survive. This characteristic is the only qualifier of what makes a vampire, for many of the other characteristics (i.e. immortality, sensitivity to sunlight, penchant for counting, bat shifting) are heavily dependent on how one acquired their vampirism.

There are two ways to become a vampire. The first is naturally, which is to say genetically. The vampire gene is a recessive gene to the non-mythic genes of humans, and thus it is common for families with a vampire and human pair to create completely human children for generations only for a vampiric member to crop up eventually. The second way to become a vampire is through Turning[1]. Vampire characteristics are passed down genetically or through Turning with a 40% chance of mutation. If mutation does not occur, whatever characteristics the original vampire had will be passed on to the new vampire.

While vampires vary, the characteristics of red irises and sharp canines are noticeable in all vampires. Sensitivity to sunlight occurs in 90% of vampires. Pointed ears occur in 65% of vampires. Bat shift abilities occur in 50% of vampires. Immortality is the rarest of characteristics, only occurring in 7% of vampires. No studies have shown a correlation between vampirism and the penchant for counting.

**Mythosapien lupus - Werewolf**

A werewolf is a type of shifter that can transform from their normal state into a wolf. All werewolves are connected to the magic of the moon, and thus they must shift when the moon is at its fullest power. Werewolf variations are as broad and diverse as the amount of wolf species that have occurred in the world. 

Like vampires, werewolves can occur either genetically or via Turning. Unlike vampires however, the werewolf magic gene is dominant, and thus werewolf and human relationships will almost always result in a werewolf child. Werewolves are the most common type of mythic in North America. 

Werewolves are one of the few mythics whose magic is solely physical, focused only on the shift. Werewolves’ magic is very keen on being the only type of magic in the person’s body, rejecting any other type of magic. This makes werewolves naturally immune to many low level hexes, but also means that werewolves cannot wield magic themselves. The only true werewolf characteristic is the ability to, either fully or partially, shift into a wolf. When unshifted, they appear entirely human. Wolf-like behavior, however, varies.

**Mythosapien draconis - Weredragon**

Weredragon is the umbrella term for all species of mythic reptilian shifters coming from dragon mythos and magic. Weredragons of different variations can be found all over the Earth, but overall they only comprise 3% of the world’s total humanoid population, being one of the rarer species of mythics. This is mainly because the only way to become a Weredragon is genetically or via Endowment[2].

The main Weredragon characteristics involve 1) the ability to shift into a dragon and 2) an attunement to a natural elemental magic. Weredragons are tied to the magic of some aspect of nature (i.e. water, fire, wind, etc.) and can wield this natural magic with maturation and training. Aside from these, temperature sensitivity occurs in all weredragons except for those weredragons attuned to weather magics like snow and sun. Sans these exceptions, weredragons do not do well in extreme cold or extreme heat. 

Due to the rareness of weredragons and the secrecy of existing weredragon clans and bloodlines, not much is known about the species as a whole, much less the subspecies of this type of mythic

\---

** KNOWN MYTHIC CYBERNETICS **

**Anti UV Dermal Forcefields**

This piece of technology is required for the pragmatic living of vampires who have a sensitivity to sunlight. A main driver is installed at the base of the neck, and upon activation, the driver creates a seamless forcefield over all the external skin of the user. This forcefield is holographic, and thus cannot be felt. Clothes can be worn over this forcefield with no trouble. This piece of technology is solar powered, so while it is shielding the user from sunlight, it is also using that sunlight as energy to continue working.

**Shift Compatible Prosthetics**

These prosthetics are prosthetics that can shift along with the user. SCPs are intuitive to the physical changes one goes through when one shifts, and they change shape and orientation to fit whatever form the user has shifted into. SCPs are commonplace, but more expensive than regular prosthetics as they have to be custom built for every user.

**Cybernetic Shift Blocker System**

The CSBS is a type of technology that blocks the shifting process. How it does this is by inhibiting the mythic part of the brain, blocking the neural pathways that allow the shift to take place. CSBSs are common for mythics who have trouble controlling their shift, popular among those with ADHD, anger management issues, or regular emotional outbursts. 

\---

** KNOWN MYTHIC CONDITIONS **

**Shift Sickness**

Shift sickness occurs when shifters have gone too long without shifting into their mythic form. Symptoms of this condition include a longing for whatever kinds of magic they are attuned to, violent behavior tied to their shifted selves, and odd magical happenings of different kinds. Shift sickness can easily be cured by shifting into one’s mythic form.

**Ferality**

Ferality occurs for many reasons but is rooted in the magic of a person becoming too great for them to control. Instead of the person and their magic being equals, the magic becomes dominant and the person loses the ability to make rational choices. Ferality is a serious condition and treatment involves magic-nulling drugs and cognitive behavioral therapy.

-

Footnotes:

[1] Turning is the process in which a mythic imbues a human with their magic. Turning can only be done with the consent of both parties and the submission of the appropriate Turning documents to one’s local Mythic Community Center. Non-consensual Turning is a crime punishable by law, ranging from 5 to 10 years of jail time. Unapproved Turning is still an offense, but a lesser one, incurring a fine.

[2] Endowment is a rare but natural phenomenon wherein a powerful being of pure magic grants a human bloodline with mythic genetics. Endowments are random, and studies have not been able to show any pattern to the occurrence.


End file.
